"You are free to pass," one of the guards that was managing the checkpoints said. "All of you be careful, the skirmishes happening in the Glouswell Forest are just as intense as the battle that is happening in the Marshlands at the moment."
"How long will it take us to arrive at the Second Defensive Line of the Marshlands from here?" Lux asked.
The guard pondered for a while before answering Lux's question. "Two to three days, give or take, if you travel without taking too many breaks."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. All of you are still too young to be on the battlefield. If things turn for the worse, don't hesitate to escape. You kids still have bright futures ahead of you."
After bidding farewell to the guards at the checkpoint, Lux and his Mercenary Group once again continued their journey, following the shortest route that his Elysium Compendium had picked for them.
Henrietta, who was present when Lux made his proposal, couldn't believe that the sickly Half-Elf, whom everyone treated as a kind-hearted person, would even think of doing such a thing.
It was as if the Lux that she had known long ago was very different from the red-headed teenager who was currently leading their group to reinforce General Fahad's army in the Marshlands.
And Henrietta was not the only one who was shocked by Lux's proposal back in the Yelan Main Camp.
Even Gerald, Rainer, and Natasha, who were watching the projection near the entrance of the Domain of the Fallen, felt that this new "Lux" was quite different from the one they raised in Wildgarde Stronghold.
As for Lux's original team, they had been with him ever since the battle in the Gate of War and had witnessed how the Half-Elf decimated nearly half of the Ammarian Kingdom Army when Malcolm's team committed Biological Warfare against the Yelan Kingdom.
He used the dead bodies of the Yelan Soldiers as bombs in order to kill people, and the result had completely exceeded everyone's expectation.
Naturally, this way of fighting was looked down by others because the corpses that he would use for his Corpse Explosion skill would almost disappear completely, leaving only bits and pieces of flesh without any way to identify who they were, so they could be given a proper burial.
Malcolm, who had experienced this firsthand in the past, remained silent during the entirety of their journey.
Flashbacks of what happened back then still appeared in his dreams, and he would wake up in the middle of the night at least once or twice a week, drenched in sweat and shaking all over.
Perhaps, this was also one of the reasons why he subconsciously chose to side with Lux.
If possible, he didn't want to be on the opposite battlefield as the Half-Elf when he used this genocidal ability of his.
Several hours later, Lux asked everyone to rest for the night.
They had been traveling non-stop in order to reach their destination as fast as possible, but the Half-Elf knew that if they kept their current pace, the others would be exhausted before they could even arrive at General Fahad's new Outpost.
"I'll go and hunt," Einar said after doing a few stretches. "What do you guys want to eat?"
"Roasted Mountain Boar!" Cai replied. "I brought a lot of spices with me. Xander, you handle the seasoning later, okay?"
Xander nodded his head. "Understood."
The Barbarian closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. He was standing so still, making Cai wonder about what he was doing.
Two minutes later, Einar opened his eyes and sprinted towards the North East.
Lux glanced at the Map in his Elysium Compendium and saw the green dot that was representing Einar, running towards a gray dot on the map.
'Interesting, he has some kind of high-level detection spell," Lux mused as he looked at the green and gray dot colliding against each other in the map. Less than a minute later, the gray dot disappeared.
Lux assumed that the Barbarian had already killed his target, so he decided to set up the fire pit where the Boar would be roasted.
An hour later, the fragrance of roasted boar permeated the surroundings, making Cai salivate.
Xander was the one handling the cooking, and one could tell that he was very experienced in cooking freshly hunted beasts.
Another hour passed before the boar was properly cooked, and everyone had dinner together.
Just as everyone had almost finished eating, they heard the sounds of explosions in the distance.
Lux glanced in the direction the sounds were coming from and confirmed that it was at least several miles away from their location.
"We will rest for four hours before we continue our journey," Lux said. "Don't worry about the watch duty. I already have that covered."
Lux summoned Ishtar and a dozen Skeleton Gang Bangers, who immediately left their camp and spread out in every direction.
After making sure that his Undead Sentries had positioned themselves, the Half-Elf looked around to look for a place to sleep.
The Half-Elf yawned before taking out a thick blanket from his storage ring and placed it on the ground. He then took out a smaller blanket, rolled it up and used it as a pillow.
"Let's sleep, Eiko," Lux called out to the baby Slime who was having a chat with Fei Fei on the log near the campfire.
"Pa!" Eiko said. "Night Night Fei Fei."
"Night Night Eiko." Fei Fei said.
Eiko then crawled towards her Papa and snuck herself inside his robe, around the chest area.
Soon, the two of them fell asleep, despite the fact that the sound of explosions reverberated in the dark night.
"Let's also sleep, Fei Fei," Cai said as she laid on the ground.
"Yes!" Fei Fei nodded and positioned herself near Cai's neck, and closed her eyes to sleep.
A moment later, the loud snoring of the Boar spread in the campsite, making Henrietta sigh helplessly.
"You guys sure don't feel the tension," Henrietta muttered before she took out her improvised bedroll from her storage ring, and tried to sleep.
Surprisingly, she fell asleep just a few seconds after her head touched her rolled up blanket, proving how tired she really was from their journey.
One by one, everyone in the camp also took out their sleeping gear to rest.
Lux said that they would resume their journey in four hours, so they planned to get as much rest as they could.
When everyone inside the camp was asleep, Lux opened his eyes and summoned two of his Doppelgangers. They immediately went deeper in the forest, heading in the direction of the battle that was happening between the Ammarian Army and the Yelan Army.
The Half-Elf fully understood that they wouldn't win the war using conventional means, so he decided to prepare for the inevitable clash that would sweep through the Yelan Camp like a tide.
As for what was wrong or what was right, Lux didn't think in black and white.
He had learned from his past life that although wars were limited in certain parts of Earth, only those who had the ability to wipe out entire nations with a push of a button could dictate what was right or wrong.
Simply put, wars didn't prove who was right or wrong.
It only showed who was left.
